Like the white peace dove that welcomed James Baker and Tarik Aziz to the “last-chance” conference at the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva in early 1991, Prime Minister Erdogan orally went out of his way to assure his guests at the Istanbul Foreign Ministers meeting of 2-3 November of Turkey’s peaceful and good-neighborly intentions. All the while reportedly some 200000 battle-ready Turkish troops 1/ are awaiting their marching orders at the Turkish-Iraqi border for taking out some 3-5000 PKK guerrillas holed up on the Iraqi side of the Candil mountains 2/.
    At a press conference held in an Iraqi hideout on 26 October, a member of the PKK leadership, Bozan Tekin, is quoted by the correspondant of Switzerland’s top newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung as having declared: “If we are guaranteed that Turkey doesn’t attack us, we’ll immediately lay down our arms.” 3/  All the while Iraq-based PKK and PJAK operations across the borders to Turkey and Iran are reported to have resulted in multiple civilian and military deaths and injuries as well as 8 captured - and meanwhile released - Turkish soldiers.
    The US, Iranian and Iraqi foreign ministers seek common ground for achieving their national objectives diplomatically. All the while the plans and the forces for attacking Iran are in place 4/ and Condoleezza Rice lets it be known that she doesn’t want to be photographed together with her Iranian homologue. And that - more than ever - the military option is not only still on the table but accentuated by developments in Pakistan and elsewhere.

To me, these seemingly contradictory and confusing official gesticulations didn’t add up. I thus called on my guru for lost causes. I wanted him to offer some advice on how to stop the war drums in order to be able to listen also to weaker but no less relevant voices of reason. And to come up with ideas which might meet the following minimum objectives:

1. Provide George W. and the current Tricky Dick a chance to repair their image in the world without playing into the hands of the Armageddon adepts who are anyway all for reducing the population to the biblical 144000 which they believe to be an indispensable condition for the Messiah to return (Revelation 7).

2. Provide Israel the ways and means for secured national existence – with due consideration for the rights and legitimate interests of other, notably Mideastern peoples and states.

3. Identify opportunities for Turkey, Iraq and Iran to reliably keep their national territories from being either attacked or misused by foreign armed forces.

1. Lame-duck politicians, particularly those who cannot be removed from a nuclear trigger, should be assisted in the exercise of their power, not pushed into a corner. The US president has been surrounded by shotgun-toting friendly-fire specialists and other reckless flat-earth apprenti-sorcerers. So far they have not seen it in their interest to brief their president of some Mideastern options which might spare him – and them - from a place in history’s dog house.  These include promising ideas and pathways, like those pursued since 1992 by the Mosul Vilayet Council (www.solami.com/rebirth.htm), proposed by Swiss lawmakers (.../nptmotion.htm), and supported by a UN-recognized NGO, the International Committee for European Security and Co-operation (.../ICESC.htm). Corresponding good thoughts, good words and good deeds are pathways on which George W. could still make it to become the next Nobel Price laureate. Thus, in the footsteps of General George Patton – “Give him another headline and he runs another mile!” – the current occupant of the White House could still spring some positive surprises on a profoundly abused community of formally sovereign nations. Conversely, another nice little war in the Middle East would certainly not help his fortunes and be more likely to prove disastrous for both America and the world at large.

2. The concerns of Israel and other countries about Iranian nuclear activities should be taken seriously. But they must not be allowed to serve as pretexts for hidden agendas. In which sense Swiss lawmakers, in a parliamentary motion (.../3103.htm), have proposed to apply the Swiss-American nuclear cooperation agreement of 1955 as a model, and to place the contested Iranian nuclear facilities under Russian sovereignty. Also, the legitimate political aspirations of all good-willed citizens of the region may be decisively advanced by way of some imaginative out-of-the-box initiatives (.../holygrail.htm, .../babylon2.htm, .../gridlock.htm, .../annan.htm, .../cabotlodge.htm, .../ashur.htm).

3. Whoever wants to responsibly participate in the discussion about the background, current conflicts and possible future of the Mosul Vilayet (Northern Iraq: .../mvcindex.htm, ..../rebirth.htm) would not loose his/her time reading J.B.Kelly’s two-pager “Let’s talk Turkey. (argument that northern Iraq should become part of Turkey)” published by the National Review on 17 September 1990, i.e. even before the first Gulf war 5/.  The Mosul Vilayet Council MVC (.../a31.htm) was established in 1992 on the historical and legal background thus brought into focus, i.e. the internationally guaranteed minority and private property rights written into Iraq’s fundamental Delaration of 30 May 1932 (.../a3a.htm). It consists of the leaders of all of the Mosul Vilayet’s constitutive Arab, Assyrian, Kurdish, Turkomen and Yezidi communities, parties and tribes. And its aim is to turn this territory into a stable and prosperous core area of the Middle East. To these effects, over a 10-25 year interim period and under the guidance of the powers that be, it will develop the indispensable institutions and political culture for equitable power- and fruit-sharing and for a referendum on its final status: i.e. attachment to Iraq, Turkey, Syria or Iran, or independence. Armed aggressions across international borders would thus be much less likely.

Thus spoke Atoni in his past writings.  I managed to speak with him later on.  He chided me for wasting my time paying attention to the war drums, US elections, and the politicians’ legendary aversion to unfashionable new/old ideas.  He pointed to the growing ARIGIN syndrome (for ARrogance, IGnorance and INcompetence) as the critical mass for failures and disasters. And he thought that policy makers and executioners here and there will continue to reach their own level of incompetence, regardless of my best efforts.  He had a point, as all of what I've dug up has long ago been brought to the attention of the powers that be. Yet, all of them, without exception, have become unprepared victims of a technology-driven and failure-producing overflow syndrome, commonly called saturation, made worse by a wide-spread loss of ethical moorings, recklessness and an already metastasic risk-averse compliance mentality.  Even internal carriers of relevant information have experienced difficulties getting to the ears and minds of their higher-ups - it's been like throwing things into a black hole, and about "as effective as pissing at a lamp post", as another iconoclast used to say. These power-holders have forgotten that the Berlin Wall fell in our direction. And they are mistaken when they take their increasingly pathetic gesticulations for on-the-level actions. Neither that nor the prospect for further calamities will change any time soon, Atoni speculated. Namely not until our leaders admit - and act in accordance with - the fact that they, too have no monopoly for good ideas. That every participant of a gridlock is part of the problem, but can also turn himself into part of the solution. And that the "right to error" exists only in conjunction with the "obligation to admit error", which is a precondition for correcting and not repeating it.

Finally, tongue-in-cheek, Atoni said while patting me on the shoulders: “You always have what you need and deserve. Your own experience amply shows that things could have turned out differently if you had come to Turkey as just another disguised arms salesman or other hard-nosed facilitator of war. And not as another of those often misunderstood and even despised practicioners of parallel diplomacy [.../edouardbrunner.htm] and underailable peace advocates.”  Thus spoke my guru Atoni while waving me off to the next peace conference in Geneva.

___________
* Political commentator, adviser of the Mosul Vilayet Council (http://www.aemam.net), and editor of the cultural, political and economic website www.solami.com; swissbit@solami.com; Murat Sofuoglu (msofuoglu@ekopolitik.org), A. Altay Ünaltay (altayu1@yahoo.com) and Yusuf Ergen (ysfergen@yahoo.com) contributed to this piece.
 

1/ USAK Baskani: Sinir ötesi için tezkere gereksiz (NTVMSNBC, 18.7.07: http://www.ntvmsnbc.com/print.asp?pid=414549, accessed 31.10.07)
2/ USAK raporuna göre Kuzey Irak, Cüneyt ÜLSEVER (culsever@hurriyet.com.tr) (http://hurarsiv.hurriyet.com.tr/goster/haber.aspx?id=6734741&p=2, accessed 31.10.07)
3/ Die PKK fordert internationale Vermittlung (NZZ, 27./28.Oktober 2007)
4/ Iran ante portas (www.solami.com/iran.htm)
5/ http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-8859902.html, accessed 31.10.07